Lancashire council to close more than 20 libraries

I thought all sorts of innovative approaches to keeping libraries open as key assets in urban, but more importantly from our perspective rural communities had been identified. Seems not in this case. The article tells us:

Lancashire author Andrew Michael Hurley, the Costa award-winning novelist, has warned that “once libraries are closed down that’s it, they don’t come back”, after Lancashire county council confirmed it was set to go ahead with plans to close more than 20 local libraries.

It will be those who have least who will be the most impoverished and disempowered when libraries are closed.

Andrew Michael Hurley

“It all seemed horribly inevitable, unfortunately,” said Hurley, winner of the Costa first novel award and the British book awards book of the year prize for his debut novel The Loney. “The real tragedy is that once libraries are closed down that’s it, they don’t come back. It’s just so sad that those who hold the purse-strings cannot see how valuable they are, how a library can be a vital place in any and every community. And as with all cuts to public services, it will be those who have least who will be the most impoverished and disempowered when libraries are closed.”